The Wrong Answer

Shadon and The Subtle Doctor break down Spring 2017’s sci-fi/political drama, Kado: The Right Answer (aka Seikaisuru Kado). The first hour is spoiler free, but BE WARNED: the rest of the cast spoils the show entirely.

Normally We would give a bit of a summation of the show, but it’s best to go into it as blind as possible if you can. So, ideally, you’ll have watched some or all of the show before listening to this.

We talk about what succeeded and what failed in Kado, macguffins, the history of 3DCG anime, categories of hard and soft science fiction and much more! The boys really dive deep for this one, and we hope you enjoy.

Playlist includes:
Garoad – Every Day is Night
Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On
capt beard – Going Up?
Yasunori Mitsuda – To The Brink of Time
Wham – Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
Daisuke Ishiwatari – Django Django
Daisuke Ishiwatari – Still In The Dark
Beastie Boys – Intergalactic
Ramin Djawadi – Game of Thrones
Rollomatik – We Love To Party
Makeup and Vanity Set – Solo Nabre
Makeup and Vanity Set – There is No Law Here
Whitney Houston – And I Will Always Love You
Mark Snow – Illuminati
Garoad – CALICOMP 1.1 Shutdown

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About the author

Doc has been watching anime since the late 90s and writing about it since 2013. He'll talk your ear off on Twitter about Monogatari, Macross or Evangelion. When he's not curating his anime list, Doc can be found playing JRPGs, watching Liverpool Football Club lose or listening to hip-hop. But more than any of these things, he's proudest of being a father.

5 Comments

This episode was just 3 hours? It didn’t feel and time flew, it was a pleasure to hear.
A pity what happened with Kado, I had the impression that the scientific and political themes of the beginning were swapped by pseudo spiritual themes, something that annoys me in double. It’s just my impression or the majority of japanese writers hate being humans and have this obsession with transcendence? I can’t stand anymore watch anime and read manga with this kind of bullshit at the end.

Anyway, I have a question, maybe.
I still don’t understand what 3D animation is supposed to achieve.
With 2D they have things figured out and just do the same things, the same techniques, they don’t really do anything new anymore. The way I see, 3D animation just needs a little time to figure things like 2D did during the 70’s and 80’s, and when they do I really can’t see what they can do that would be “revolutionary” beyond just being made with care.

Good recommendations at the end, Time of Eve could become more relevant with the recent talks about IA, but Ergo Proxy is a bit too much philosophical and I always had the impression that they cut some two episodes at the end.

Re what 3D can do, I think at present the increasing prevalence of 3D in animation both eastern and western is due to the cost relative to doing it in 2D (this economy eh). It’s being used in a way not conducive to the actual art itself but rather to keep things in the black, so to speak.

That is admittedly speculation on my part and I don’t presume to comment on the relative difficulty of 3D versus 2D animation. For example, as mentioned in the cast apparently Berserk 2016 suffered from going too far in its 3D fidelity that it ultimately hamstrung the work, so it’s not like they went into that project wanting to do things the easy way at least.

To me, I think what 3D might be able to accomplish better than 2D is a precise sense of depth and scope. I’m no artist, but I’d imagine with a 3D modelling environment it’s much easier to accurately create a sense of scale for large objects and also how to convey distance, since you can directly compare the model’s sizes in the scene itself as well as their relative positioning.

Beyond that, I think much like hard versus soft sci-fi as we discussed in the cast, it’s not a question of one being better than other. It’s instead down to how each are used to their fullest and artistic vision of the creator and studios. In the event of 3D being used as a cost saving measure however, the problem is that accountants are not artists.

To add to what Shadon said: traditional 2D animators are dying off and haven’t been-for many reasons-passing on their techniques to the younger generation. When Mamoru Oshii’s “The Sky Crawlers” came out in 2007, he lamented the fact that the planes were animated in 3D. He wanted them in 2D, but nobody knew how to animate planes in 2D anymore. either because of secrecy or overwork and lack of time, old masters are leaving us before they can fully pass down their skills.

“For example, as mentioned in the cast apparently Berserk 2016 suffered from going too far in its 3D fidelity that it ultimately hamstrung the work, so it’s not like they went into that project wanting to do things the easy way at least.”

This reminds me of those talks about 2D animators trying too hard to stay on model, that would be better to not care too much and animate more fluidly. I don’t totally buy this argument, I don’t believe that “excessive fidelity” was a problem with Berserk animation. You can have fidelity and good animation at the same time if you know what and how you need to do (and have the time). Subtle Doctor below remembered the case of Sky Crawlers. If you choose either 2D or 3D some parts may be easier but one is not necessary better than the other. If the animators available at the time weren’t on the level of the masters this just means that they needed more time, after all those old animators didn’t became masters overnight. The same with 3D animation, we are seeing the results improving each year, with time the technique will mature, basic mistakes will note be made, some exponents of the medium will appear bringing new methods and solutions to problems (including adapting that same basic principles in work on 2D).
Will this revolutionize anything? I can’t imagine how, I need to see to believe, I only expect that we’ll see less shitshows like Berserk.

Regarding the animators: Oshii wasn’t saying they were not masters so they couldn’t draw to his liking. Rather, he said no one…unequivocally no one…knew how to animate planes in 2D. Like, at all. He could have been exaggerating, sure, but when was the last time you saw 2D animated planes? It was not about making the next generation as good as the old guys right away, it’s about teaching them fundamentals so that they could build on that foundation over time, and, according to Oshii, that work wasn’t done. So they have no chance to even become mediocre at 2D animation of planes, robots, etc. Whereas, 3D animation work is booming, in anime and especially video games. There are lots of jobs and the skillsets can apparently be taught much more easily than traditional animation.